Elmore Leonard - The Big Bounce

Maybe that didn’t follow. Maybe you couldn’t justify going through the window, but how many things in your life did you bother to justify? If you got caught, you got caught. No excuses. No trying to skinny out. Right? That was the only way to think about it. Though the best way was not to think about it at all. Just do it and don’t make a big thing out of it.

In spite of Leon Woody, he still had to go into a place not knowing whether the people were home or not, and finally he did it. The first time he stayed downstairs, felt his way around, and left in a couple of minutes, not taking anything. The next time he went up to the second floor, keeping to the side of the steps, putting his weight gradually on each step, until he was in the upstairs hall. He walked into a bedroom where a man and a woman were sleeping and took seventy-eight dollars out of a billfold on the dresser. He was going to tell Leon Woody about it, but at the last second, ready to tell him, he decided to keep it to himself. Leon Woody might think he was nuts.

Finally, though, he didn’t have to worry about Leon Woody or what he thought. Twice Leon Woody was picked up on suspicion. Somehow the police got onto him. They went into his place with warrants and wanted to know how he could afford the car and all the expensive clothes. Leon Woody told them gambling-horses, man. The third time Ryan and Leon were both picked up. They had gone into a house and, on the way home, stopped for a couple of beers. They weren’t in the bar a half hour, but when they came out, two plainclothesmen were waiting at Leon’s car with a warrant. Ryan was arraigned with Leon on a charge of breaking and entering and was given a suspended sentence. Leon drew six months for possession of stolen property. He also lost his job with the carpet cleaner. After his release he was arrested again, this time for possession of narcotics, and was sent to the Federal Correction Institution at Milan. Ryan wrote to him for a while, but Leon Woody hardly ever answered. He probably had something going at Milan and was too busy.

In eight months of part-time breaking and entering Ryan made about four thousand dollars. He didn’t buy expensive clothes or move out of the apartment because he knew his mother would suspect something and ask questions. Though one time he brought home a stolen TV set when the one at home had blown a picture tube, and no one-not his mother or his sister or Frank, his brother-in-law-asked him where he got it.

In June, Ryan took a Greyhound to Texas for another try at Class C ball.

“It’s being inside all the time that gets you,” Mr. Majestyk said. “That’s why I sold the tavern. You got to get out and do what you want to do and feel you own yourself. You know what I mean?”

“When I quit the job at Sears,” Ryan said, “that’s the way I felt.”

“Sure, I know what you mean. What about the baseball?”

“I told you, I got this bad back.”

“I mean when did you play Class C?”

“It was just three summers, I thought I told you,” Ryan said. “I’d work at these jobs the rest of the year. Then two summers I didn’t play because of my back. Then it felt okay and I tried out again this June, figuring I could make it.”

“Yeah?” Mr. Majestyk was interested.

“But my back-I don’t know, it gave me a hitch in my swing. A guy would curve me and I’d get all out of shape. So I come home, figure forget it.”

“You drove up with the migrants, uh?”

“That’s right. This crew leader offered me a job, so I figured why not?”

“Christ, you sure belted him.”

“Well, he had it coming. If it wasn’t me, it would be somebody else.”

Mr. Majestyk finished his beer and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “What have you got to do?”

“I’m still clearing that frontage, all the driftwood and crap.”

“Hey, we never figured your day off.”

“I thought Saturday,” Ryan said.

“Saturday’s out. That’s our busy day, people leaving, new people coming in. Tomorrow or Friday.”

“Tomorrow’s all right. I don’t care.”

“You got nothing to do, take a run up and see that property. rogers, the sign says.” Mr. Majestyk paused; he made a decision, and looked right at Ryan and said, “I see you got a car.”

“It’s just borrowed.”

“I didn’t think she gave it to you.”

When Mr. Majestyk paused again, Ryan waited; he wasn’t going to help him; if the guy wanted to stick his nose in, he’d have to think of a way to do it.

Finally Mr. Majestyk said, “That’s the car she run the two guys off the road with.”

“I figured,” Ryan said, “from the dings in the front end.”

“The one kid has got two broken legs and internal injuries.”

“You told me.”

“Long as you remember,” Mr. Majestyk said. He dropped it there.

Ryan had a cigarette and stretched out in the sun for a half hour, then got going on the frontage again, raking out the tangled brush and crap and dragging it into a pile. He was burning it when Mr. Majestyk came grinding across the uneven ground in his bulldozer, a stubby yellow machine that Ryan figured must be the smallest one made, though, God, the diesel engine made a racket. Mr. Majestyk showed him the gears and how to raise and lower the blade and for the next couple of hours Ryan played with the bulldozer, gradually digging out a hollow to bury the junk in that wouldn’t burn.

When the beer drinkers from No. 11 came down with the Scotch-Kooler, he knew it was after four, time to knock off. He’d bury the junk tomorrow. No, Friday. He was hot and sweaty from two and a half hours in the field; he was wearing just his cut-off khakis, so he walked out into the lake and swam to the raft and back. He wasn’t a good swimmer; he had no endurance, but his form was good and it wasn’t any harder than swimming out to the boat last night. That was funny, he hadn’t thought about her all day. He thought about a beer and walked across the beach within ten feet of the beer drinkers ready to say “hi” if they looked at him, but they were laughing at something and didn’t seem to notice him.

“Hey, you got a phone call!” Mr. Majestyk was crossing in front of No. 1 from his house.

“Where?”

“No, a message. I told her you were working. She says to tell you six o’clock.”

“She give you her name?”

Mr. Majestyk’s solemn expression held on Ryan. “Maybe you’re crazy, she isn’t.”

Ryan moved off. The hell with him and what he thought.

He was near the swimming pool when Virginia Murray came out of No. 5. He saw her waiting for him and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Hi-I thought you were going to fix my window.”

She was in her aqua bathing suit. She had come in from the pool, had seen Ryan, had wiped the oil from her face, and gone out again.

“Hey, I forgot-no, I didn’t forget, I just couldn’t get to it today.”

“Could you look at it now?”

Her figure was all right. Pretty good, in fact: nice bazooms, good legs, not too fat, but sunburned and sore-looking; over a week here and still sunburned.

“Listen, I would but I got to run. This person is waiting for me.” He was moving away. “Tomorrow for sure, okay?” She was nodding as he turned and that was the end of it.

He turned off the Shore Road and followed the winding drive through the trees to Old Pointe Road, then crept along until he saw the new-looking white two-story house with the attached garage and well-kept shrubbery. The name on the mailbox, R. J. Ritchie, made him hesitate. He hadn’t got a good look at this side of the house last night. They had come around through the trees and he had waited by the garage while Nancy went in for the wire. He turned into Ritchie’s drive slowly.